


Spoonful of sugar

by lazarusthefirst



Series: Five dumb peas in a dumb pod [4]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Bad Jokes, Banter, Dad Gansey, Fluff, Gangsey, Gen, Humour, Laughter, Plotless, Shenanigans, concerned parent Gansey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-22
Updated: 2015-10-22
Packaged: 2018-04-27 15:21:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5053855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazarusthefirst/pseuds/lazarusthefirst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As the certified parent of his friends, Gansey worries about their well-being quite a lot. He regularly finds ways to drug them with vitamin C, always carries sunscreen for the delicate Irish skin that just loves to go lobster and burn, and produces so many high-sugar snacks for Adam at a moment’s notice that Ronan had taken to calling him Diabetes Dad.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spoonful of sugar

**Author's Note:**

> more 'i was on the bus home and shit happened' ficlet stuff

As the certified parent of his friends, Gansey worries about their well-being quite a lot. He regularly finds ways to drug them with vitamin C, always carries sunscreen for the delicate Irish skin that just loves to go lobster and burn, and produces so many high-sugar snacks for Adam at a moment’s notice that Ronan had taken to calling him Diabetes Dad.

But what concerns Gansey the most is their mental health. Sure Ronan could one day wrap the BMW around a lamppost, but there was nothing he could really do about that apart from nagging Ronan into always wearing his seatbelt until he finally knocks the habit into him. He sees how school and college weighs on his friends' minds, how Ronan will go silent because he’s fretting over something that he’d never dream of voicing, how sometimes Noah will disappear for slightly longer than usual and come back looking dazed, and sounding like he’d lost time. So he does his best to make them all laugh, whenever and however he can.

Out of everyone, Gansey’s favourite laugh is Ronan’s. And not that shitty sarcastic cackling he does when he’s being a jerk, or when someone takes a hard fall in front of him, but the big belly laugh of genuine amusement that takes everyone by surprise, including Ronan. Sometimes Gansey wakes up with a hankering for that laugh, and spends the day trying to make it happen. A laugh that leaves a smile lingering on Ronan’s face can sustain Gansey right through until bedtime. There was something about making Ronan laugh that made Gansey feel like he’d really accomplished something. That he’d done something truly beneficial and productive with his day.

Gansey loves when Adam laughs too, but it's not as rare. Adam might spend a lot of his time being serious and solemn, but he has a far better sense of humour than Ronan and is ten times less cranky than Ronan on his best day, so he laughs a lot more easily than you’d expect. He also doesn’t have as many hang ups as Blue, and isn’t as easily offended. Blue is very sophisticated, and Gansey is learning that while she doesn’t always laugh at the same dick jokes that the others do, her strong moral code means her amusement is harder to earn, and therefore ten times more valuable. There’s something about Blue’s quiet humour that makes Gansey feel almost in awe of her presence; it’s an air of superiority that isn’t acknowledged or affected in any way by Blue herself, but makes Gansey want to try harder, to win her approval.

And she smiles a lot more around him, he’s noticed happily. Although not as vocal in her amusement, her eyes have a sparkle when she looks at him that Gansey’s taken to thinking very hard about at night.

It used to be rare that Noah would even crack a smile, but like a lot about Noah, that was beginning to change. He was laughing more and more, and the gang were starting to learn that Noah has honestly the strangest goddamn sense of humour ever. His idea of what’s funny is so off the wall that it really is like being haunted by a proper ghost sometimes (as opposed to the “fake ho of a ghost” that Ronan calls him when he steal food off his plate 'for no fucking reason you _can't even eat it'_ ); hearing his laughter floating through the walls at something so completely innocuous as Adam sticking his tongue out at Blue when she kicked his feet off the coffee table could be borderline creepy, especially when nobody could pinpoint the source of the “joke”.

But since they can’t predict what Noah will find funny next, his laughter is always an unexpected delight. Despite the whole “where is that distant laughter coming from oh wait we live with a ghost” thing, Noah laughs like a babbling brook and when he laughs everyone laughs (once the goosebumps have gone down). They make a game out of it, a deadpan “Somewhere, Noah is clutching his sides” during moments of intense boredom, which develops into a fun new way to pick on each other. Gansey’s excited monologue about how the lunar cycle is affecting the mating habits of owls elicited a round of ‘Stop, Gansey, Noah’s gonna crack a rib’. And after the thirty minutes it took Adam to drive take them on a fifteen minute journey, Ronan pronounced Adam’s driving ‘So boring, it would bring a tear to Noah’s eye.’

(The game also developed a self-defensive spin-off, a huffy “Well, Noah would find it funny” whenever a joke fell flat. Gansey used that one a lot).

Making Gansey laugh is far, far too easy. Blue thinks his perception of what’s funny is actually skewed due to the amount of time he spends carrying out mind-numbingly dull duties for his family of politicians, and equally his reading of dusty old books and digging up copper arrowheads in his spare time.

‘Are you calling me boring?’ Gansey asked, mildly offended. ‘I’m not boring. I like to have fun.’

‘Noah’s gonna laugh,’ called Ronan and Adam simultaneously; seconds later, a disembodied giggle floated out from the kitchenbathroom.

Blue tilted her hand and squinted. ‘You’re not boring,’ she explained. ‘But your hobbies aren’t exactly wild. It’s kind of like how a baby spends all day playing with a cardboard box and then laughs for days when you play peekaboo.’

‘Are you calling me a baby now?’ Gansey asked, bemused, and secretly horrified.

‘Don’t worry Gansey,’ Ronan said lazily from where he and Adam were lying on the floor sharing punnet of grapes (‘You need _vitamins_ ,’ Gansey had stressed, throwing the fruit at them). ‘She knows you’ve got a dick in there. Somewhere.’ 

Adam snorted and nearly choked on a grape.

Gansey, being Gansey, also had a bit of a tendency to laugh out of kindness, or perceived obligation. He was so good at making people feel at ease that they often didn’t notice until afterwards, when the moment was over. They others would have called him on it more often, but then Blue would smack Ronan upside the head for referring to her as five chipmunks in a trenchcoat, or Noah would try to phase through the wall like Kitty Pryde and lose his concentration half way and get stuck, or Adam would stall the hondayota at the lights and curse for two solid minutes like a sailor, and Gansey would _laugh_.

His giggles are simply delicious; his eyes and nose crease up, and sometimes he covers his mouth with the back of his hand, all polite, like his mamma raised him, and even though there are tears coming out of his eyes he can’t shake the habit.

And for the others, it’s like the sun coming out from behind the clouds, because the politician’s smile is gone, the cares of an old man, the worries of a king, all shrugged from Gansey’s young shoulders with his filthy goddamn laugh. Blue turns into a physical embodiment of the heart eyes emoji. Ronan has to take deep breaths to stop himself from flipping a table over. Adam gets so distracted he forgets to restart the car. Noah goes completely silent, chin on his hands and a rapt expression on his face, like he’s inhaling Gansey’s good mood, drinking down his laughter.

And the process of everyone trying to get Gansey to laugh starts all over again.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on [tumblr](http://thetrojeans.tumblr.com/) and [twitter](http://twitter.com/lazarusthefirst/)>


End file.
